The Automated Business Assessment and Benchmarking tool for Small and Medium Businesses

Scaling and the 3 Pillars of Execution Capability – Part 2 – Process

Scaling and the 3 Pillars of Execution Capability – Part 2 – Process.

Last week I introduced the topic of creating execution capability for businesses what want to scale. I talked about how people are one of the 3 critical ingredients needed to scale a business and I introduced some ideas about developing roles and responsibilities, effective recruiting of employees, and leadership and management styles that work. This week, I will be talking about building effective processes in your business.

Process is all about defining and refining how tasks are carried out in your business. Frequently, processes simply evolve over time and you may hear people claim they carry out a task in a particular way, simply because they always did it that way. This is not good enough if you want to scale your business.

From a purely practical point of view, how does one define and refine business processes? Well the place to start might involve making it someone’s responsibility in each functional area of your business to document every process in that function. So if you have a traditional company structure with, functions for Human Resources, Finance, Operations, Sales, Marketing, Administration – then you should have a defined lists of processes that reflect every activity in each of these areas.

For example, in the HR function, you will probably identify processes for the following activities:

Recruitment

Selection

Joining

Holidays

Sick Leave

Performance Management

Remuneration

Grievances

Disciplinary Action

Terminations

Training

Policies

Procedures

This is just a sample and there may be many more processes in your own HR function. Continue this documenting of processes in each of the other functional areas of your business until you are sure you have captured every task carried out right across your business. If there is nobody in your business who can do this for you, you can always get outside help from a business consultant.

Different organizations favor different ways of capturing their processes. My own preference is to use a visual workflow format. A simple way to start documenting processes in workflow maps is to use Microsoft Visio, which allows you to easily capture existing processes in a visual way, where each step in every process can be quickly examined, discussed, revised and refined. Here is a sample of a workflow map that deals with how the credit control function works in a sample business.

Unlike a linear process captured in a Word document over several pages, you can instantly see the value in crafting a visual workflow of the entire process on a single page. Every activity and every action/decision point is obvious. This makes it easy to spot redundant or repetitive tasks that are unnecessary and to change the way you work.

Let’s now move on from the practical application of creating business processes and focus on the high level reasons for developing them.

If your business is to scale successfully, it firstlyneeds to be predictable, repeatable and replenish-able. So what does this mean? In simple terms, your inputs need to deliver outputs that are consistent every time. The business model and all of the processes should be capable of replication in other geographic locations and the inputs should generate the same results. The business model and processes should be flexible enough to allow refinements to be made that allow for improved results, without damaging the core model.

Secondly, the business execution and the underlying processes should be capable of being delegated, automated and outsourced. This means that you cannot scale if your execution is tied to specific individuals that are critical to your success, including you. As a business owner, you must be able to delegate responsibilities, activities and processes and to step out of the business without it having any material impact on the results. You need to be able to automate repetitive tasks to create efficiencies and deliver consistent results, particularly profit. And, you must be able to outsource activities that do not add value to the bottom line.

Building effective business processes starts with an examination of your processes and the identification of the value added activities in your business that sets you above the competition. It means also identifying the activities that do not create value or which may be redundant. It demands that you learn to do things efficiently and effectively. I talk about a dozen of the right processes that can make a difference to a business, in the process section of the following article and it might be worth taking the time to look at it. http://growthoracle.com/your-clients-have-they-got-the-right-stuff/. I call this the “right stuff”.

Some areas where you need the right stuff include the following:

Right Strategy

Right Capital Structure

Right Financing Partners

Right Execution

Right Design

Right Manufacturing Processes

Right Products

Right Marketing

Right Policies & Procedures

Evolving Best Practices, Standards & Tools

Right Sales Force doing the Right Things

Reaching the Right Customers in the Right Way at the Right Cost

Delivering the Right Value

In simple terms, you might look at your business as if you intended to franchise it out to investors that would like to replicate your brand, your know-how and your business processes. To be able to do this, you firstly need to document every aspect of the business. This is preferably done in a workflow format that makes it easy for people to understand, to follow and to replicate. Visual workflows make it easier to identify redundant steps as well as to see where value is created.

Venre Harnish, author of Mastering The Rockefeller Habits, suggests that there are between 4 and 9 key processes that define and drive every business. These are different for individual businesses but it is incumbent on you to identify what they are for your own business. It is likely that they are the processes that deliver sustainable competitive advantage. Being sustainable, it must be difficult or impossible for competitors or new entrants to replicate them.

This concludes the discussion on Process. Once you have built the 3 pillars to support your business, you are only then in a position to attempt to seriously scale it. The third installment in this blog series will deal with Infrastructure, and will be published next week.

So what are our clients saying?

I have been an Executive for 20 years and a business consultant providing services to medium and small businesses for 10 years. I have been looking for a tool that will help me quickly analyze my client's current situation and provide a solid, measurable road map for improvement. This product is the answer!! It is accurate and relevant across a broad range of industries and business types. The ROI for my clients? The money spent was returned in under a week. HowsMyBusinessDoing delivered a solid analysis and solid recommendations toward improvement.

Larendee Roos, CEO Roos Consulting, Brooklyn NY

HowsMyBusinessDoing.com provided me with a 50 page report on my business within 30 seconds of completing the survey. It is astonishing how accurate the report is considering that I never engaged with a human management consultant

Gerard Coffey, CEO Floor Design Ltd., Ireland

When I first looked at trying this intelligent business analysis tool I thought that it could not be much use because it is so inexpensive. Boy was I wrong! It just oozes value and costs less than a night out to dinner with my family or a business magazine subscription

Vincent Kennedy, CEO Equashe, Ireland

HowsMyBusinessDoing.com provided me with a 50 page report on my business within 30 seconds of completing the survey. It is astonishing how accurate the report is considering that I never engaged with a human management consultant

Gerard Coffey, CEO Floor Design Ltd., Ireland

This tool really is at the leading edge of business analysis. I haven’t seen anything like this before. The accuracy of the report is uncanny and the cost is miniscule

Ray Kane, CEO Special Steels Ltd, Ireland

I recently undertook the "HowsMyBusinessDoing.com" survey with one of my clients. It was easy to understand and complete in less that two hours. The "36 Month Question" in particular was a very powerful exercise. The detailed 70 page report we received accurately reflected my understanding of the company and supplied me with an independent identification and confirmation of areas we need to work on that will further improve the performance of the company. I see myself using "HowsMyBusinessDoing?" again with other clients going forward and it represents great value for money in my opinion.

Financial analysis of businesses is part of my stock and trade but this is only one part of gaining an understanding of what makes a business successful or not. How the business is managed is the other key component of success. Up until now, this type of business intelligence could only be gathered by interviewing senior executives in a business. With the introduction of HowsMyBusinessDoing on the market, this type of business intelligence can be gathered quickly and simply by any business owner and without the need to hire an external expert.

Greg Colclough, Chartered Certified Accountant

I have been a business lending banker for more than 30 years and have recently used 'HowsMyBusinessDoing' to analyse the businesses of some of my customers. I have to say that the results generated by 'HowsMyBusinessDoing' have consistently matched my own assessment of the businesses concerned. It has the capacity to quickly help business owners improve aspects of their business they may have thought were working well and identify problems that they may not have been aware of.

Pat Errity, Business Lending Banker

HowsMyBusinessDoing is a very good tool which enabled me to glean information about my competitors and other successful businesses, and to find out what best practices they used, so that I could use these practices and implement them into my business. I found HowsMyBusinessDoing a very cost effective way to improve my business and I have been very satisfied with the results.

Paul Kinsella, Owner Kinsella Antiques, Cairns, Queensland, Australia

HowsMyBusinessDoing helped me to get an understanding of the true value of my business, which backed up my decision to sell it and move my life in a new direction. In my opinion, HowsMyBusinessDoing is a tool that can be used in any business, regardless of industry or business size.

Cathal Markey, former CEO SSIL, Ireland

HowsMyBusinessDoing, is a really thorough business assessment tool than can quickly get underneath the skin of your business and point you in the right direction. Not only does it identify the areas where you are weak, it also shows you the strengths you can build on to make your business more profitable.

We made a major shift in what we were doing after using HowsMyBusinessDoing. We made changes in the way we offered our programs and to whom we were going to offer those programs. We shut down a whole sector of one of our program offers and we did that not because we were trying to reduce the size of our business but we did need to make some consolidations to make sure we’ve got the ability to meet the needs of our better end and most reliable clients, and the 28 point Health Check system gave us the ability to find those people and find a way to meet the needs that we saw.

Dr. Frank Hansen, Vice President, Stauron University, Maine

I have used HowsMyBusinessDoing for service organizations, non-profit organizations. I have used it for retail organizations. I also used it in my own business in helping me to determine how my business was structured and how my consulting practice could be improved.

Larendee Roos, CEO Roos Consulting, Brooklyn, NY

Buy Now and Pay in US$US $497

This button is for businesses that are located outside of Europe. No VAT taxes will be charged.

Buy Now and Pay in EuroEuro €375

This button is for businesses located in Europe. VAT tax will be added to the purchase price.